Construction will begin soon on a new student activities center on the Carthage High School campus between David Haffner Stadium and the High School.
The Carthage R-9 Board of Education approved a $1,775,000 contract with CGS/Marion Co., out of Neosho, to build the structure that will house the Carthage Tigers archery program and provide indoor practice space for the marching band, the football team and other sports.
Carthage Superintendent Mark Baker said more companies bid on the project than the district expected, and the low bid was a little lower than expected.
“This is the first phase of the project, the construction of the structure itself,” Baker said. “We approved the specs for the turf field inside the structure and we’ll send those out this month and hopefully have bids for the December meeting.”
Baker said phase 3 will include furnishing the building with the tarps and equipment and that will mostly be handled by district employees.
Most of the money for the building is coming from a $1.5 million grant from the Kent D. and Mary L. Steadley Memorial Trust, $500,000 over five years from the McCune-Brooks Hospital Trust, and $300,000 from private donors interested in the archery program.
In August, Baker said the district would make as much as $700,000 available from the naming rights money it has collected over the years. No taxpayer money would be needed for the project.
On Monday, Baker said the district hopes to spend as little of the naming rights money accumulated over the years on it as well and it was encouraging to see the bids come in under expectations on the first phase of the project.
Building specs
The district plans for the center to be 58 yards long and 58 yards wide, with room for 30 archery lanes.
It will also have a turf floor to allow other sports and the marching band to practice indoors when the weather turns bad and it will have protective screens so more than one team can practice in the building at the same time.
Baker said in August that the district’s success in archery was the impetus to build the activities center.
He said the original plans for the 80-acre Carthage High School campus include an activities center, so the utilities and infrastructure were installed for the building when the high school, Tech Center South and David Haffner Stadium were built.
The building was originally to be built later in the district’s priority list, but Carthage residents, many who were supporters of the archery program, came to the district with a proposal that included committing seed money to the project.
Baker said currently the archery program practices in the old wrestling rooms, in church basements, anywhere it can find space.
Archery supporters initially came to the district with a proposal to build an outdoor practice range off the Carthage High School Campus, but the district proposed the indoor facility and the supporters came on board with the money they planned to put into the outdoor facility.
The push for the facility gained momentum when officials decided they could build the facility completely with donations, grants and possibly some of the money from the naming rights the district had sold for various facilities.
